Size: up to 24 cm

 

Key Features: The crab is large in size and has two distinctive large claws that are used for fighting, hunting, and movement. Their shell is generally seen as shades of dark green. The crab is also identified with two adapted appendages located behind the smallest legs and are used for swimming short distances to escape predators. Diet: order smaller crabs, fishes and dead matter.

 

Habits: The crab normally relies on its camouflage and fast snapping claws to catch and crush its prey to death. Although big the crab is uncharacteristically fast when it needs to be; this animal hunts mainly at night when most fish are in their sleeping state. These crabs are highly cannibalistic in nature; when crabs undergo moulting other hard-shelled ones sometimes attack the moulting crabs and devour them.

 

Conservation status: Not Evaluated

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

B. J. Hill, M. J. Williams and P. Dutton (1982). "Distribution of juvenile, subadult and adult Scylla serrata (Crustacea: Portunidae) on tidal flats in Australia".Marine Biology 69 (1): 117–120.

 

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Project, Second Interim Progress Report, GEER Foundation, June 2012.

 

Photo Courtesy

Palmfly, Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons